


A Crown of Wire, Blades, and Blood

by ParadifeLoft



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Extremely Dubious Consent, M/M, Psychological Torture, Torture, mental violation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 21:22:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/957740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadifeLoft/pseuds/ParadifeLoft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, Finrod cannot recall enough to make his prison back into something recalling the fortress he once built - but his captivity and his captor are not the least bit shy about dredging up other memories and twisting them to their own purposes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Crown of Wire, Blades, and Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zaatar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaatar/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Ame! I hope you find this to your liking (though I assume Finrod will find it less to his >;3).
> 
> A couple notes on content, for those of you who care about the headless-chicken-esque flopping around I did in trying to figure out what warnings to stick over this (before giving up and treating it rather in the manner of Weasleys putting stamps on their mail): the archive warning is there because no, meaningful consent does not exist when you're being tortured and having your brain messed with by a sadistic Maia (or really anybody, regardless of metaphysical and psychological status); as an objective description of events, there is no consent. On the other hand, my intent with the tagging was to indicate that the psychological content and _subjective_ experience being described contains an element of willingness and enjoyment, which I realise may be a relevant boundary in terms of fic reading preferences and so I wished to note that for the sake of clarity.
> 
> As a final note, I would also appreciate if any commentary given to me specifically would refrain from commenting (either positive or negative) on the hotness or general enjoyability of the sexual content, in any manner except for on a technical writing level. Thank you.

He came each time wearing a different face, but the eyes were always the same. Vertical black slits like a cat's, perpetually widened in anticipation, amusement, among other things… Golden irises shining like flames leaping from Laurelin's branches. The only light to be had in the dungeon ( _what had the room been originally?_ Finrod racked his mind at times, trying to remember, trying to make some part of the tower _his_ once again, but the thoughts were too slick with blood to stay long enough that he might examine them).

His thoughts hadn't bloomed into the full cast of madness that he cringed at now, when those eyes had first appeared, but at the time it had seemed close enough. Finrod had shook, curled in upon himself as much as he could still bound in the chains that had rubbed his wrists and ankles raw and strained all his muscles near to breaking - _no, too bright!_ his senses screamed after the pitch-colour of all before his eyes since he had come to this place; and they even held a _sound_ , those eyes, low and humming and opening Finrod's mouth in a silent cry as though that might stop him feeling deafened.

And yet despite the pain of it, how he hungered for any such stimulation. Senses burning still, he'd opened his eyes and almost _concentrated_ , drinking in it all at once, too much, far too much, and he trembled like water in a jug filled near to spilling over at the slightest provocation.

Finrod regretted it later, doing as much, once he was lucid enough to be able to regret again. Because in, through the sensations that he took in greedily, the _song_ burst against him once more. The water was disturbed; Finrod found himself smothered and drowned. Gulping for hope like air.

Despair filled his lungs instead.

A mix of guilt and grief, buried rage (more guilt) and fear… _betrayal_ … When he came to, the eyes were still there, wide and bright with curiosity and a cruel glee that Finrod could imagine with perfect clarity even in the gloom, the matching quirk of lips. Stretched wide and curved upward and showing just a sliver of white teeth between them.

He was not surprised, not this time at least, that the expression brought his cousin to mind.

Good that it did, when long, slender fingers, pale and eerie like the moon even in the dim glow, tight and strong in their grip despite how frail they looked, wrapped around Finrod's arms and tugged him struggling, almost delirious, into another chamber, just as dark, and strapped his wrists and ankles tight to an apparatus that felt like cold stone and rotting wood. Those fingers stroked his cheek, his jaw, the outline of his neck, and stoked his rage. And then the pain began, and the rage, at his captors, at his torment - at his damned, bloody, bloodstained traitorous cousin! - that rage lashed itself to the fragments of his sane mind, and kept it from being tossed out into torrential waters.

Searing ropes burst forth from the sinews of Finrod's muscles, the lengths of his arms and legs burning with no reprieve. The creak of gears wrenched him further apart and he let out a pained whimper in his next breath - strained pressure on his hips and shoulders; red hair swam in his mind and Finrod could see the torn mess of Maitimo's shoulder amongst the vivid images he sculpted for himself, with none provided to him proper by his eyes.

But Finrod would not be rescued from this, not the way his cousin had been. Maitimo would have thought the same ( _had_ thought the same? Finrod couldn't remember), but his certainty was only belief, not foresight; despair, rather than knowledge.

(Finrod had both, and they twined together for strength like lovers.)

He cried out again, and fingers that touched like ice but burned hot when they left his skin curled up against his chest, his shoulders screaming protests, his neck with the violent drumming of his pulse nearly darkening a bruise against the skin. A wicked croon, sick and sweet like rotting fruit, caressed him beside those hands; Finrod shuddered, senses trapped and ripped at by what he could only call _un-dark_ , until it released him to a mouth filled with seawater and blood.

Finrod gagged and choked, his wordless voice joining with his body to proclaim his agony - he tried to curl upon himself, retching and sick, but it only strained his already near-snapped limbs.

(Was this what his cousins, what their grandfather had felt, when Morgoth came upon Formenos? - He shoved the thought away; no sympathy for any of them, he refused, he refused, twined his fingers into the anger that had tried to slip from him until the skin rubbed raw - )

He screamed. The creature in the dark sang in harmony, delight and anticipation and poison in his mouth, tongue suddenly against Finrod's lips - blood seeping from them where he'd bitten them unknowingly, and the creature lapped it up.

A knife-blade shined against his chest then, slid down threading through the skin as finest silver, sharpened wire in the moonlight - blood blossomed there, too - Finrod's lips and throat felt sewn so tight that his cry of pain echoed only through his mind. And if summoned by the noise, the image of his cousin swam at the front of his vision again, smiling wolflike and dragging fingers along the lines being cut into his chest - Finrod tried to growl with rage,  grab his hair and pull him down until that damned smirk disappeared beneath bruises and bloodied and muscle as Finrod tore him apart - his injuries stung as he moved and he let out a strangled howl instead. Curufin rose, and touched the pads of his fingers, wet and shining with Finrod's own blood, to Finrod's lips, pressing them into his mouth and watching him with heavy darkened eyes.

He wished to shove or kick him away, but he had learned from just moments ago. And Curufin wasn't real. Nothing was real here. Nothing. Nothing.

Stickiness dripped all down his torso, from the fiery, throbbing wounds sliced into him - this he thought was real. But a mire, he felt, as though he were standing in pools of it, half-coagulated and stinking like Angband iron. (His feet did not touch the ground.)

"Open your eyes, love," murmured the voice, and he _did_ feel the fingers in his mouth this time, metal and salt on his tongue; Finrod gagged, stomach clenching involuntarily. He did not open his eyes - until the fingers left his mouth, left Finrod trying to spit out the taste with naught but his parched tongue like sand, and moved to caress his eyelids, smearing them with the remainder of the blood. They flew open _now_ , and Finrod shook convulsively. As if it might free his hands; he wanted it now more than any time before, such that his body itched and screamed with the disgust of his own blood seeping down into the creases of his skin.

And then _those_ eyes again. They gleamed wide and wickedly, illuminating fair brows, clouds of hair like golden fire, lips parted in a smile of fascination or lust or both. Finrod could see pointed canines peeking from inside his mouth.

"Ah, Lord Felagund, my pretty guest of honour." Silk and quicksand syllables, and Finrod shuddered - he'd not given his name; had one of his men talked; had they been _hurt_ \- Sauron's fingers stroking at the edges of the lacerations on his chest and making them sting above the throbbing ache all through his body. And then the same sensation, but at the edges of his mind, sharp and pointed and dancing around the barriers of Finrod's thoughts with mocking laughter and the desire to slice him apart.

He could not help the rapid shaking of his breath, his entire body - the light of the Blessed Realm, of Arafinwe's House, should not be so weak; why should _he_ fall under this Doom with those who had destroyed his family, had sent him off to die  with joy-quivering voices and sly smiles? But Sauron caressed his ruined torso - _you needn't shake, little one_ \- touching him like he was some frightened animal to be calmed! "What other Western lord with golden hair? A shining voice, the air of a prince? Such sensitivity to other minds, and their dooms? Who else could you be? Opening your hopes and dreams to me as you did… What a beautiful memory of the Light, my Prince."

Finrod hissed and bared his teeth, defiance of the pain and the mockery both. Of how the cadences of the Maia's voice, joined with his hands, recalled coupling he'd once enjoyed, the edged teasing lilt of malice in velvet and a clever tongue stirring warmth in his loins.

Fitting, he thought savagely, wrenching himself away from any sort of pleasure, no matter how unwanted - fitting, wasn't it, that his cousin held such a likeness to one of Morgoth's servants. Traitors, both of them, sneaking into kings' graces with hands full of gifts and mouths full of enticing words. (He'd never trusted him, no, but that would not be enough to save him. Had not been enough to save his lords, following him into this trap - Finrod stifled an anguished half-laughing cry. In looking for comfort having failed his men, his _brothers_ , once, he had wrought their doom a second time.)

But as Finrod dragged his mind away, Sauron came upon it savage as a warg, sudden and biting  - Finrod stumbled in the rush of the attack, but grasped between the jaws and held them from closing down upon him. Sweat ran down his arms and neck, slicking his hair, and he trembled - the song, over and over again repeating, it had weakened him, as had his physical condition, and he trembled - his arms slackened for just a moment as he tried to catch his breath -

the jaws closed, and Sauron tore through the threads of his defenses.

The Maia was a wild, sick energy thrashing inside him, ensorcelled fire thick with poisoned smoke and sludge scorching across the plains of his kingdom _no not the city you will NOT FIND IT_

one great shove, he could manage, and the beastly spirit recoiled, before burrowing further into his memories

his childhood home in Tirion now, acrid and burning and Finrod stumbled, at the blackened trees, the husks of houses, his brothers, tiny, Aicanáro's hair not yet grown out, lying lifeless on the gasping dusty plain, running blood into the river -

Finrod's vision swam again, and he saw Alqualonde, Alqualonde when he had visited to help his grandfather; he could see the new expansions to the city being built in the distance, he had been no more than one hundred - _no, no_ , - he doubled over sick again, as the city dripped blood - welled from the sands beneath his feet, sticky and wet and he gagged as it rotted beneath the heat of Laurelin.

_You fought against us?_ A booming voice echoed inside him, and Finrod looked up, up from where he crouched on hands and knees - Curufin stood before him, eyes blazing, sword in hand. When he bent down, grabbed Finrod beneath his chin and wrenched him up to his feet - it was not anger, the look in his eyes; bloodlust, perhaps; delight at the stains on his hands and armour. He breathed heavily, mouth marred by the corners of a smile, as he put the tip of his sword to Finrod's chest, pushed in until he could feel it sharp through soft linen.

And Finrod did fight then, grabbing at Curufin's arm that held his chin up and wrenching it away, kicking out at his cousin's shins. Coiling his mental barriers tight within him, and then -

he pushed _out_ , and everything screamed around him, collapsing in a roaring wind of torrential rain. Finrod himself screamed, too, feeling the claws sunk into his skin being yanked away to leave jagged torn wounds, even as he wrestled with the force inside him.

They all burst free with the shock of being slammed in the chest. Finrod panted and gasped, half-choking; and he was momentarily blinded again, swallowing in gulps of air with panic.

When the glow of the Maia's eyes became bright enough for him to see once more, he turned his gaze on them - and saw them shining, wicked slits, from his cousin's face.

The ropes and boards stretching his arms had been loosened at some point; perhaps when he'd been trapped in his own mind - and so Finrod was able to pull and twist at his bonds, a panicked gallop in his heart, when the creature caressed his face, ran a hand the length of his body with no gentleness skimming over his wounds.

"Do you not appreciate me like this?" Sauron asked, eyes taking a veil of innocence, wide and curious. Unable to hide the malice beneath the surface that Finrod could still read from them. He slid fingers along Finrod's jawline, so close that the tips of Curufin's long black hair brushed unbound against his chest - and Finrod shuddered, turned his head away to the side.

Though his revulsion could not help the way even a facsimile of his cousin made a warm, seizing want slip through him - and Sauron tilted his head (it did not look as alien on his cousin's face as it should), leaned in to bite against Finrod's shoulder with one hand around his waist and the other near the inside of his thigh. Finrod tensed sharply, eyes going wide, freezing, but he could see the curve of _Curufin's_ back, feel _Curufin's_ hands on his skin and mouth on his neck and when he squeezed his eyes shut it did not stop the pooling of reactive lust in his belly, between his legs.

Sauron's mind, still distinct from the outer form he wore, at least, danced about the edges of Finrod's spirit still, even as his hands danced along Finrod's skin. _Precious little Findaráto_ , the voice hummed against him, sleek, teasing, lusting, right inside his head. Inflection near enough to his cousin's that…

Anger bubbled in him, fed the warmth in his sore limbs and torn body. At Curufin, leaving him here to this torture, full knowing, with a sad look and a smile and a kiss and a speech; at this hateful creature before him, digging into his mind and pulling up twisted phantoms. But if anything, that only made his want stronger (how often had Curufinwe angered him, made him desire, all at once, until the two reactions twined together? the latter pulled along whenever the first spilled out in him?), and when Sauron cupped his face, stroked him, kissed him with teeth against his lips and tongue, all Finrod could do was gasp, and tighten his fingers into fists.

_Scream for me, cousin._ Twisted, sadistic fondness in the edge of the syllables spoken into his mouth, his mind. The hair stood up on the back of his neck, and he felt the knife blade biting cold and hot with pain against his skin once more. He stifled a scream, mouth contorting even as it strangled the sound welling in his throat.

It was not his cousin. Not Curufinwe. (He would not have allowed Curufinwe to touch him so, even if it were. Not now. Not ever again.)

When Sauron kissed him once more though, sweet and spiced in his parched, cracked mouth - Finrod kissed him back.


End file.
